In 1907, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière made history by transforming the monochromatic world of photography into vibrant color with their new invention, the Autochrome Lumière.

In the years before this invention, color was usually added to a photo by hand-painting its surface with dyes and pigments. Instead, the Lumière brother's invention used layers of dyed potato starch and light-sensitive emulsion to create color transparencies, offering more accurate depictions of nature and generating new creative possibilities in the realms of art and journalism.

As the story goes with so many advances in photography, the Autochrome Lumière soon became obsolete following the 1930s invention of the lighter and more practical Kodachrome film, which met a similar fate in 2009 after the rise of one more advance — digital photography.

These autochromes show what the world looked like in color over 100 years ago.